I've been reading a lot of urban fantasy these days. At the moment, Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series is taking up my reading time and I'm always amazed by his stories, writing style and characters. It's quickly becoming one of my favourite series'. I also got started on the 'Mortal Instruments' as well, but I won't read the rest. It didn't capture my attention the same way Peter Grant has. Anyway, urban fantasy, stories that are set entirely in a city that feature fantasy elements like the supernatural and the mythical. It's awesome if done right, and what I love about the Peter Grant books is how different they are to anything else I've read. It's magic, wizards and supernatural, but in unpredictable ways. Like, hardly any vampires for a kickoff. In light of this new fantastic literary discovery, I've been thinking about perhaps writing some urban fantasy of my own, but I'm caught up in my own work at the moment so such thoughts have to stay behind for now. Still, it has got me thinking a lot about urban life though.

Mercy in the City

I said so in a previous blog post, 'I Am A Vampire' that I want to live in America, preferably a landlocked state like Colorado. That being said, I do like my cities. Here in England, we have our fair share of countryside and I live in Somerset, quite hilly and full of people who, from the impressions I get, have always lived here and won't move away. I couldn't live like that, but I'm not from these parts. Before living here for about ten years, I always moved from one town to another all over the country thanks to my dad's army shindig. So, I made friends at my own peril but considering my age during those times, I wouldn't have grown much of an attachment to them or the places I lived. My memory is scattered from those days, I remember some houses, some people, a place snowbound to the waist and killing time playing footie with my brother. I've never felt any emotional attachment to any place I've been before, not even here. In fact, I can't wait to leave Somerset and live alone somewhere. It'll be a long time before I cross the pond to America, but still, you never know.

But, before I defect to America, I'd like to live in the city, maybe London. Not really sure why, but I know I hate living in the country. Sure, my town is pretty big but there's green everywhere. I'd like to spend my England days in a city, not to mention its qualities for meeting contacts and just being more in tune with the literary world. I'd say London would be the ideal place to go. Who knows when that will be, but the day I can move away from home can't come a day sooner. Now, one place I wouldn't like to live, even though so many guys out there love it, is New York City. When I went a few years ago, it was so hectic, cramped, smelly and devoid of any character. It's not like it is in the movies, at least not for me. Then again, maybe London's the same. London is definitely a lot more attractive than New York. Like Los Angeles, there's only a few skyscrapers so you really notice them and appreciate them, unlike New York which flashes them like cheap jewelry as if it thinks it's cool. Less is better. The ideal city I'd love to live in would be Denver. I mean, look at it! It's in Colorado, a beautiful part of the world and the skyline has only a few tall buildings and in the distance the Rocky Mountains stand tall over the Mile High City. It's biblical. London has it's historic River Thames, Los Angeles as its sun-soaked climate and what does New York have? Nothing that interesting. Oh, apart from Central Park.

When Home Becomes A Place You've Never Been

I've never really felt that attached to England. Yeah, I set my stories in England because it's where I'm from and I have much more understanding of England and English people than any other, obviously. That probably goes with any writer and their nationality. Americans understand Americans more, for example. Anyway, I couldn't see myself living here all my life. I've always felt more attached to America. I'd like to tell you what started this love affair, but I can't because I have no idea. Reading 'Stephen Fry: In America' pretty much sold the idea of moving away, add that to the amount of American literature I read, I guess you could say that I am a secret American. That's fine by me. Yeah, I'd like to live in the city. London in England, and Denver in America, but ultimately, the place I want to rest my head at is a snowy American skiing town like Aspen. But, until then, I'll stick with this place and dream a little more. And I've said 'American' so many times it's lost all meaning. American. American. American.

Back to that urban fantasy idea I never spoke about, I don't know what it would be, but I'd like to write something in urban fantasy. Not sure what, and it's not like something I can think up on the spot either. Reading and playing games always snaps up a small idea, a seed for something bigger but I'm usually up to my eyes in a current project so I can't get on with the idea. Multitasking isn't something I'm great at, at least not for writing. It's one project and one only. It works for me. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with something and try my luck at urban fantasy. Kudos to those who write it though. After reading 'City of Bones', my head had trouble understanding a lot of it and fantasy is a great genre for creating a series, and me and series' get along as well as wasps and me alone in a room with the windows closed.

Well, that's what I think anyway. America has always been the place I've wanted to live, at least somewhere along the Rocky Mountains anyway. Who knows, maybe I'll be there next year, small chance, but still. As long as one works hard, doesn't let the dream burn out and doesn't give a damn what any naysayers say, one can get to the finish line. And with that corny line, consider that your right to dream big.

Rejection is nothing new for a writer, in fact, one has to expect it. I'll admit, I felt disillusioned when I got my first rejection email for a short story. Still, it doesn't stop you from trying again the next day with something else. Stephen King used to keep a nail impaled on his wall so he could tag all of his rejection slips as a reminder, and now look at him! For me though, getting that first 'no' was the wake up call that told me that I'm now taking my career ambitions seriously. I would never have tried to send something off a few years ago in fear of getting turned down, and because back then writing was still something I couldn't see myself doing full-time. Things have changed.

I Don't Want to Do This Anymore

For the longest time, I didn't think I could make it as a writer. School was a bust, college was great except that media really wasn't my passion and uni told me nothing except that writing is the only thing I should do. That's when I decided I was going to become an author. And I still believe that, more than I used to. I guess you could say that 'you' is your own worst enemy, I think that's doubly true for an artist of anything. We're constantly criticizing ourselves, we think we're not good enough and we think that highly successful authors were either born with their talent or they got fantastic grades at school. Well, that's not true. You don't need a high degree in English to be any good at it, you just need a love of language and a keenness to write and read. Well, at least that's what I tell myself. You know what though, I don't want to ever feel like I've mastered the English language, because then they'll be nothing to aim for. With every story I write, I want to try and do something new. For example, my new novel is the first story I've ever written that features supernatural elements. I'd never dream of doing that, but lately I've been thinking a lot about fatalism and ghosts and that's crept its way into my story. And that's fine by me.

My writing lifestyle transformed when I looked at it as a job instead of a hobby. Yeah, at heart it's still that hobby, but with the ambition of a publishing future, it's become so much more, and because of that I'm taking it more seriously. I'm thinking more about the clarity of the story and wondering more if a magazine or anthology out there would take it. Reading too has helped my grammar. Everything I know about sentence structure, the lyrical content of sentences, finding a voice and punctuation has come from reading loads. Reading is instrumental with writing, you can't do one without the other and expect results. You know, you can't make good films if you don't watch them? Or you can't music well unless you listen to a load of music? I don't know, but reading and writing is a must if you ask me.

A Road Untouched

The picture on the right is me winning my first writing competition. When I sent it off, I didn't know where'd be, just not in the top three. Then, with a phone call, it turned out I did win. Quite a surprise, but more than that, proof that a scrawny little whippersnapper like me can win something to do with writing. So, it was quite a big deal for me. OK, the presentation itself sent my heart hammering and I can't smile for photos, but it was still great to feel some kind of success with something that I want to do for a living. One win won't change my life, but it's something and for me it's more than winning that counts. I make it a rule to never reread a short story I've sent off for competitions until after the verdict because I'll be extra critical about it. If I sent one off in the first place, it would have been pruned and edited as best I can. But, that annoying voice in my head will argue otherwise if I go back. Needless to say, that voice can shut the hell up with this one.

I'm sure they'll be far more failures than successes in the future for me, but I'll wade through it. If you want something bad enough, hopefully nobody will say enough to make you stray from the path you want to take. I know what I've got to do and quite often it feels like I'm getting nowhere, but if I could read the future then maybe I wouldn't complain, or maybe I would! Still, this does prompt those fatalistic thoughts, such thoughts I hate but either way, this is a good thing and I'll just keep writing and see what happens I guess. If nobody else in the world believes in you, then you've got to believe in yourself. Otherwise, you may as well quit.

I said before that Skyrim is my favourite world in a video game, but I forgot another favourite which then prompted me to think about worlds I've loved in books I've read, and games I've played. Creating a convincing world is hard, terribly hard and for it to come alive on the page would require so much patience and hard work. I wouldn't know the best way to do it, no doubt you could find self-proclaimed 'How to Write Sci-fi Worlds' articles and you may do well with them, but I wouldn't know. However, there are some out there that, for me anyway, are unbeatable in every way. Excluding Skyrim from this list, I'll run down some of my most loved fictional settings.

It would be folly not to mention the underwater dystopia in the Bioshock video games and novel. Set at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, Rapture is a place designed for the best minds in the world to create a city uncontaminated by the rest of the world. When the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings ended the Second World War, Andrew Ryan (the architect) believed that humanity would fall soon enough. Rapture became a shelter from nuclear fire. What's so interesting about Rapture is how it was built. It's powered by volcanic geothermal energy and there's even a forest grown inside to provide oxygen to it's population. Transport is handled by bathyspheres and reinforced tunnels that connect parts of the city to the next. Rapture is a dystopia after all, so how goes the downfall? A genetic arms race, that's what. Scientists under Andrew Ryan designed plasmids using a new source from sea slugs known as ADAM and with that, people could unleash swarms of bees, ignite people on fire, summon a winter storm and conduct an electric charge all from the power of their fingertips. A civil war broke out and most of the population became drugged up, intoxicated lunatics trying to survive under the sea. There's loads more to it than that, but if you read 'Bioshock: Rapture', you'll get everything. Rapture is still worth visiting in the video games even now.

2) USG IshimuraDead Space, Dead Space 2 and Dead Space: Downfall

More video games locations here, but the doomed gigantic deep-space mining ship in 'Dead Space' is one of the scariest places I've been too. After an alien infestation wipes out almost all of the crew, Isaac Clarke (the hero of the series) must dive into the horrors of the reanimated crew and fix the ship on his own. The aliens, the Necromorphs are the walking terror aboard the ship, aliens who used to be humans. Once infected, their bodies become twisted, broken and disembodied as they hunt down anyone left alive, and when you've got just one sprinting down the hallway, its blade-like arms thrashing and its jaw snapping, it's pretty hard not to get a bit freaked out. As you go about the Ishimura, you see all the clutter from the lived-in ship and plenty of audio logs lay forgotten on the floor for you to listen to. You get a sense of what life was like before and during the catastrophe and how many of of the crew suffered from insanity before the infection spread. It's even worse when you revisit the vessel in the second game where it's going through an intense and thorough clean-up and each part you see is faithfully redecorated from your original visit along with extra detail such as red tape and UV lighting so you can see all the blood. Religion lives on the vessel and that has a big part of the world itself. Unitologists, in a nut shell, believe that Necromorphs are the next stage in human evolution. They're a little nuts.

3) The World StateBrave New World

I've said it before, but 'Brave New World' is insane. No book for me matches this, not one. Welcome to the World State, a place where the globe is in eternal peace and has controlled population so no more than two billion people live. So, this means that goods are plentiful and everybody is happy. At birth, people are sent in categories to bring balance to the population. Natural birth doesn't exist and instead, people are created and placed in their social castes as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. You could look at this as a utopia, but I'm not so sure. People are conditioned to never enjoy solitude and one must always enjoy social activities to consume, consume and consume everything. Pleasure is everything in the World State. Bernard Marx, on the other hand, is miserable, he isn't like the rest of society and he yearns for the old ways. When he visits a Savage Reservation, he soaks up the old life despite being with a friend who finds the whole experience horrifying and desperately wants to take Soma, a hallucinogenic drug so she can go on 'holiday'. It's a story about how the things we love may be what kills us, and many always make comparisons to 'Nineteen-Eighty Four'. The two are often known as one of three giants of dystopian fiction, the third being 'Fahrenheit 451'. All of which are excellent.

4) DunwallDishonoured

Another game this, but I fear that this gem went under the gaming radar back in 2012. You could say it's steampunk, but I don't know steampunk well enough to say so. Anyway, what I can tell you is that the whaling town of Dunwall is loosely based off Victorian London. The main story is kind of bland, but the story of the city isn't. Dunwall is powered by whale oil, you know, whaling. I think whaling doesn't exist in most parts of the world now but it was a slaughter. In Dunwall, everything is powered by whales and the city is stricken by a Rat Plague caught from the unknown part of the world, Pandyssia. The city is collapsing, the City Watch have gutted rotten parts of the town and are trying to cleanse the plague but all is failing. Ultimately, it's up to you whether or not the city survives or dies from the plague. Assassins run the flooded districts, corrupt members of parliament call the shots and nobles try their best to have 'Great Gatesby' style parties to forget about the plague but nothing works. The game uses soft textures and deep colours to create its own art style and IGN used the best metaphor I can think of to describe it.

It's like an oil painting in motion- IGN

For obvious reasons, games make a world feel more lived in and authentic than books, but on the flip side of that, books can make worlds feel all of the right things which means that the writers who wrote them have rare skills. It's hard to sum up some of my favourite worlds, these four were the ones that sprang to mind in a heartbeat and I'm sure there's a few more worth mentioning. Creating worlds is enormous fun, but bloody hard to get right. I'm kind of working on one, but I like to write stand alone novels for the time being. If I were to get soaked up in my own fictional crazy, then I'd need time to spare and right now, I don't want to spend that time being an architect.

I'd wager that if all Brits took a survey about what season they like best, summer would win. No contest. Don't get me wrong, I get why summer's attractive. It's hot, looks nice, clear skies, you can venture outside more, early mornings and long days and sunshine brings out the smiles where they last died. I, however don't like summer. I don't like it when it's so hot you can't move, I don't like early mornings and I don't like the sun sticking around after nine when it should have died. I'm somebody who loves frostbite temperatures, wrapping up in layers and I love the snow. The world is a beautiful place, but the snowy lands up north beats any exotic beach down south every time in my world.

All My Limbs Will Become Trees

I've always preferred the cold, there's more to understand it about I find. I guess I've always felt sorry for winter. It always gets a bad rap for being miserable, cold, wet and disruptive, but I find all of those things charming about it. It's characterful. Most people want winter done with so they can get on with the summer and I think that's upsetting, there is nothing wrong with the cold season. There's something about a forest dead with trees, frozen creeks and snow-capped buildings that triggers scenes in my mind and I guess that's why quite often my stories take place at winter. Mind you, the novel I'm currently writing takes place on the eve of summer, but that's because it's set at the end of college. Anyway, it's new for me.

I may have said before, but I want to move far away from England. The plan is to move (at some point) to Colorado, America where the snow is in wide abundance. Obviously, Colorado has its seasons but it's utterly beautiful. If not there then somewhere in Northern America like somewhere near its border with Canada or Canada itself. I want a modern log cabin near a skiing town so at night the entire town is lit up with an orange glow made brighter by infinite blankets of snow. I want the sun to show up late in the morning, hang around for a while and leave before tea. I want the sunset to cast deep orange beams of light across the world that catches my attention and never let's go. I want mountains that cradle the town I live in as if they're the guardians of our save little world and no harm will come to us. And I want to write stories in such a place where misery and sadness can't disrupt.

Solitude

Writing is a lonely job, but as writers we know this and we know how to deal with it. But, when summer comes around, I can't help but feel lonely. So many people in my town love the summer and when the town is alive with people outside enjoying the sun and I'm inside to afraid to leave my bubble of solitude, then I feel alone. I'm getting better with it though. I'm trying to enjoy summer but I'll never come to love it. And that's fine, because I know what I love and I don't care how many people question my dislike for the heat, it's not them I'm trying to impress. It doesn't help my feelings of being a freak though. In the last issue of Writing Magazine, there was an article about '10 ways to write this summer' and the writer insulted winter and (to me anyway) spoke as if we all harboured the love of summer. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm sick of winter getting slated for being itself. That's like hating somebody for being them. It's useless to complain though, summer will always be more popular.